The Neighborhood

(album: Nobody's Smiling - 2014)

[Intro: James Fauntleroy]
Thousand lives ago
We were young and we didn't know
We were trading our crowns for our souls
Made the sacrifice
Headed back to the light
But be careful don't drown in the gold
I know it glows but it's cold

[Sample]
I'm from the other side of town
Out of bounds
To anybody who don't live around
I never learned to share or how to care
I never had no teachings about being fair

[Verse 1: Common]
Have you ever heard of Black Stone around Black Stones?
And Four Corner Hustlers, Vice Lords, Stony Island on Aces
The concrete matrix, street organizations
They gave violations, hood public relations
It was the basics to get big faces
Stay away from cases, bad broads, good graces
The hustles was the taste makers and trend setters
They the ones that fed us hoping that the feds don't get us
The era of Reagan, the terror of Bush
Crack babies, momma's a push, we were the products of Bush
I'm wishing for a Samurai Suzuki and a little Gucci
A bad ho to [?] do me, you heard of flukey?
Stokes it was folks and coke and dope
Fiends choked off of smoke, herringbones and rope
Rare jewels of a generation
Diamonds, blinding us so real shit we facing
Forties wasted on seats, Dion making the beats
When they air it out on at the parties we escaping the heat
I could break it down like whatever you need
He squinted his face and rolled the weed

[Interlude]
You know they don't see sometimes
That in the neighborhood
It's the exact same thing
It's the same thing over and over again
Feel me?

[Verse 2: Lil Herb]
Have you ever heard of no limit, three hundred, six hundred?
Folly boy, O block, eastside
Where it ain't no conversation they just let them heats ride
Can't nobody stop the violence, why my city keep lyin'?
Niggas throw up peace signs but everybody keep dying
Used to post up on that strip, I look like a street sign
I've been out there three days and I got shot at three times
Felt like every bullet hit me when they flew out each nine
I be happy when I wake up and I have a free mind
I know haters wanna clap me up, watch the morgue grab me up
But they can catch me later, I been cool, chasing paper
Where I come from ain't no hope if you was claiming that was major
Small crib, big fam, mom was working, grammy raised us
No food in the refrigerator, I was banging, pulling capers, that's real shit
Same niggas from day one boy, yeah I'm still with
Better watch out for that jump shot cause they will hit
Homie take your shorty lunchbox, and won't feel shit
I came from a place where it's basic but you won't make it
Feds building cases, judges who racist and full of hatred I mean
You ain't never seen the shit that I seen

[Outro]
Coming inbound
Forty six minutes from 355
Jim Bryant's twenty eight out, thirty two in
Lake Shore Drive's heavy south
North Avenue to Chicago, jammed north through Grant Park
Tri State heavy south [?] to the Bensenville Bridge and St. Charles to the Stevenson Ramp
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